The Being With (Waiting in Wonder, Week 4)

There is a lot
about the WAY that God chose to go from being God almighty to becoming God WITH us, that mystifies me.

The first week of
Advent we zoomed out to the cosmos, to find hope in the one who holds the big
picture and promises the future. The second week we began moving in a bit to
peace – the future hope is leading us to- the radical righting of everyday wrong
in natural and social order, in the person of Jesus. The third week joy confronted
us with it’s bombastic, all-out celebration of rightness, that comes to us in
fits and bursts, and points us forward to enduring peace, and to the hope that
carries us to that peace.

This week we look
at love, and wonder together what exactly love is and what it means that God
comes in love.

On Christmas Eve
we’ll get to the event itself - the moment God enters in to become God is with
us. But before we zoom all the way in, tonight we get to face some of God’s
strange and revealing choices along the way, and I have to say, I am amazed all
over again at God’s decisions.

Now I’m not a
football person, but I do make a pretty good armchair quarterback - Monday
morning quarterback-? So let’s get started.

Let’s begin with
Joseph. Josephis stuck in a real predicament,
legally contracted to marry this girl who turns out to be knocked up by someone
else.

Virgin birth for
some is a sign of purity or divinity, and it certainly speaks volumes of a God
who brings life out of impossibility, but like it or not, whatever it may actually be, at least there will be plenty implied.

And poor Joseph,
what does it say to him about his wife to be? And what does it say to the whole
village about this girl he’s been pledged to? He is within his rights to have her stoned for adultery, but
decides to be “kind” and quietly divorce her instead.

So, to begin,
God, who comes to earth to save people from their sins, decides to come as the
bastard child of a loose woman and her humiliated fiancé.

This is the first
decision of God’s coming that I question.

The second
decision I question is the use of Mary and Joseph to begin with.It seems like God is taking some awfully
big risks all around. Mary.
really? Why not someone tried and tested? A priest’s wife or a wise queen, a
spiritual leader of some sort? Instead God picks Mary, a young unmarried girl
in a nowhere town, and just kind of springs this Messiah Mama thing on
her.Thank goodness she said yes,
or what then? Did God have a back up in mind?

And back to Joseph - this commonplace carpenter, by the way - Alone, confused,
and stuck, he’s getting ready to do the only thing he can think of that is both
proper and at least semi-considerate, that doesn’t hurt Mary too terribly but
follows some semblance of propriety and God’s law, (though it does, as one
scholar put it, “lack creativity and compassion.”)

Of course, God
lets him puzzle out his plan first, and just when he is resolved to divorce Mary,
God has an angel tell him in a dream that it will be ok, and he should just go
ahead and marry her and carry on as planned with the marriage, because, don’t
worry, this is God’s baby.

So, that should clear it all up…

And You, Joseph,
are to name him Jesus, which means, God
saves, because God is coming to save all the people.

And so, like
Mary, Joseph also signs on...

But to what?

God doesn’t spell
things out very clearly beyond that – after all, they end up delivering this
baby in a pile of hay in a smelly barn outside an overcrowded inn in a busy
town far from home.Not exactly
great planning.

And don’t even
get me started on what happens after the birth… what with an evil king and the
fleeing to Egypt, and all.

Frankly, it just seems
like the whole thing gets patchworked together with this disorderly assortment
of ordinary people bumbling through it all in well-meaning but shortsighted
ways.

The thing that it
leaves me with is incredulity. Amazement. A little awe.

God has got some guts. Coming to earth in this way.

Just who does
God think he is? Like he owns the place? No dignity; no dignitaries. No etiquette or solid arrangements in
place.

Starts out as a scandal, born homeless and
then becomes a refugee, all before he walks or speaks his first word…I guess what I am saying is that God just
comes right on in any old way God pleases, doesn’t use the front door or the
guest bathroom; barges in the back way with muddy boots like one of us.Like he belongs or something.

So, all this begs
the question, why this way? You could
do this any old way you want, any way in the entire cosmos, and this is the way you choose? What kind of God would come this way?

Well…

A God who has
nothing to prove.

One who doesn’t
care one whit about appearances or public image.

Not too worried
about getting dirty, either.Or
being mistaken for the help.

A God who likes
to pull in unexpected characters and out of the way locations, who gets a kick
out of surprise and irony, who challenges the status quo.A God who is not easily intimidated, or
overly concerned with efficiency and order.And One who likes a little celebration and fanfare, but in
the quirky, marginal way, not really professional quality center stage.

And, a God who
comes for us all.Who belongs to
us all.

Not for the wealthy
or the well-connected or the powerful or pretty. Not for the righteous and the
rule-keepers and the good girls and the brave boys.For us all, and so
came poor and disconnected, in a scandalous way to some very ordinary people.

If we'd read all the verses before this one we'd see that Jesus is in the
line of King David, except not really directly, he’s adopted in by the love and naming of
his adoptive father Joseph.

God
comes to earth as an adopted kid.

And does it one haphazard step at a time, just like all the rest of
us.

And so I think again
of Joseph and Mary, because when they’re such average, ordinary folk, it’s easy
to go there, and I wonder, What I would
do in their shoes?

Would I say
yes?

Would you?

Perhaps.Maybe we would. But to what?

I suppose the only yes one could give in a situation like this is a yes to the person
in front of you, to the overall vague concept, without any idea of what it
means in actuality.

What would the
next day be like? Or the day after that? What kind of long-term plans would it
require or personality traits would it expect of me?

I really like to know ahead of time what I am getting into, and it doesn’t seem like any of these folks had a clue.They were pulled into this thing that just kind of unfolded as they went along. Why didn’t God lay it out a little further in advance for them, give them some more heads up? God seems to be placing an awful lot up for grabs.

So any yes that we
could give would be just a kind of brave but scared little yes, a nervous
little yes that says, ok, God, you want
to do it this way, I guess you can count me in, and then seeing where things led from there.

But maybe that’s
all we’re ever invited to.Maybe
that’s how it works anyway.

Love her, be his daddy, is God’s message to Joseph.

Say yes to that.
Say yes to them.

Move forward into this life that I am laying out before you
alongside one another.

Don’t be afraid
to do it, Joseph.

Say yes to this
girl I am giving to you, and the baby I am giving to the world. Be with them,
and together put one foot in front of the other and see where it leads.

And maybe that’s
what love is.

Not signing on
for a big, clear, attainable plan. Not saying yes to a whole perfect project.
But choosing to be with the ordinary people in front of you.

And saying yes to the God who calls you, in all your own shaky ordinariness.

I will be there
with her.

I will go there
with them.

I will belong to
them, she will belong
to me, he will belong to
us.

And whatever
comes after that, and however it comes, we’ll be in it together.

Love says, you
are not alone, I will be with you. Even if it makes me look bad, or leads me to
scary places, even if it makes me have to make hard choices, or rips my heart
wide open, or makes me vulnerable and weak, or takes me where I never thought I
would go.

Love breaks hearts and leads people to do inexplicable things.

God became with us, not in a strong and invincible,
powerful and sovereign, well-planned, and foolproof strategy to save the
world, but by being with us, awkward and messy, tiring and
scary, a little exciting, a little confusing, a lot needy and dependent. Completely
in the hands of conflicted people, struggling to do the right thing and
wondering even what that is.Trusting ordinary folks to love and choose and be with God with us, come what may.That’s how God
came in.

OK, so, it may
not be how you or I would plan it. It’s certainly not how anyone expected it to
be. God chooses to belong to us, in order to let the world know that we belong
to God.

But maybe that’s
the only way to truly go from being God almighty to being God with us. Through
Love.

Maybe that’s the way God saves.

And if that doesn’t fill you with a little wonder…

O come, dear child of
Mary, come,

God’s Word made flesh
within our earthly home;

Love stir within the womb
of night,

Revenge and hatred put to
flight.

Rejoice, rejoice! Take
heart and do not fear,

God’s
chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.

-Verse to O Come, O Come Emmanual by Barbara Lundblad

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